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Of Burning Houses And Roasting Pigs: Why Butler V. Michigan Remains A Key Free Speech Victory More Than A Half-Century Later, Clay Calvert
Of Burning Houses And Roasting Pigs: Why Butler V. Michigan Remains A Key Free Speech Victory More Than A Half-Century Later, Clay Calvert
Federal Communications Law Journal
More than fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its unanimous decision in Butler v. Michigan, the case remains a pivotal-if unheralded and perhaps underappreciated-victory for freedom of speech. This Article analyzes the Butler principle and demonstrates how courts repeatedly apply it across different media platforms and in a myriad of factually distinct contexts, ranging from prohibitions on the sale of sex toys to bans on beer bottles with offensive labels. The Article initially provides an in-depth look at Butler, drawing on literary scholarship, historical newspaper articles from the time of the case, and other sources. It then illustrates …
The Two-Step Evidentiary And Causation Quandary For Medium- Specific Laws Targeting Sexual And Violent Content: First Proving Harm And Injury To Silence Speech, Then Proving Redress And Rehabilitation Through Censorship, Clay Calvert
Federal Communications Law Journal
This Article argues that legislators today that want to suppress First Amendment-protected images of sexual and violent conduct conveyed on a specific medium face a steep two-step evidentiary burden. First, they must prove actual harm caused by the speech in question as it is conveyed on a specific medium--not the aggregate injury from viewing all media generallythat is sufficient to overcome free-speech rights. Second, even if sufficient harm from viewing violent or sexual content on a particular medium is proven by social science research, the government then must prove that its legislative remedy-its censorship of the harmful expression conveyed via …